


Temporis, Spatio, Mens

by Arcadias_Fire



Series: Whoverse Stories [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Crossover, M/M, Memory Alteration, Psychic Abilities, When Tags are Spoilers, You crossed what with what?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-05-24 05:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcadias_Fire/pseuds/Arcadias_Fire
Summary: “What’s in here?”“Nothing.”The Doctor turned at Lukas’s strangely flat tone. He tried the door handle. It was locked. “Will you let me in?”“No. There is nothing down there.”The Doctor looked at the taller man. His eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. “Sure about that, are you?”“Yes.”“Well I’m not.” He aimed the sonic screwdriver at the lock only to have his wrist caught in a vice-tight grip. The Doctor looked up and met implacable blue eyes.“You need to leave. Now.”A mysterious signal is coming from London. The Doctor encounters a strange man who seems oddly familiar. Has the Doctor found another hidden Time Lord? And what’s with that hunky guy at the bake shop?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately after “Silence in the Library”/”Forest of the Dead” and before "Midnight". 
> 
>  
> 
> This story was beta'ed only by myself, so any typos/errors are mine.

  
  


“Doctor, what kind of signal is it again?” Donna leaned back against the TARDIS console while the Doctor moved frenetically around her.

 

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m interested.”

 

Donna sighed. They were going back to Earth. Again. Earth was dull. Admittedly after having been nearly eaten alive by shadows, a little dullness might not go amis. “And it’s in London.”

 

“Yes.” The Doctor moved her aside to flip a lever that had been behind her. “It’s near…” he peered at the screen which displayed a map, “Covent Garden”

 

“At least I can do some shopping.”  

 

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, making it spike up even more. “Donna, if there are aliens invading London…”

 

“Again,” Donna interrupted.

 

He nodded. “Again - finding the best deal on that vintage dress isn’t going to be your top priority.”

 

The redhead rolled her eyes. “What about the last time we found a ‘weird signal’? It was a car alarm, for goodness sake!”

 

“A space station is not a car.”

 

“It was deadly boring.”

 

“Yes. Fine. You shop. I’ll find the signal.” He flipped another lever and the TARDIS materialized with its familiar groaning wheeze.

 

They stepped outside. Donna wrapped her jacket around her more tightly and looked around at the busy street. “When are we?”

 

“2013. After the Olympics. Sorry.”

 

Donna rolled her eyes. “Meet back here in three hours, yeah?”

 

The Doctor nodded, held the sonic screwdriver up in front of his eyes, made an adjustment to it, and headed off down the street without a backwards glance.

 

“And when you end up getting captured by something slimy, I’ll come find you,” she muttered under her breath and stalked down the street in the opposite direction.

 

o0o

 

The Doctor dodged through the crowded streets, eyes fixed on the sonic screwdriver. He automatically avoided pedestrians, bicycles, and cars alike. The Time Lord wasn’t even sort of looking where he was going, so when he found himself stumbling through a wood and glass door into a comparatively dark room, he started.  

 

He looked up and around and grinned. “A bookshop! I love a bookshop.” The shelves were packed, books laying horizontally above the regimented titles. His task momentarily forgotten, he plunged into the stacks.

 

Two minutes and fifty-three seconds later, someone cleared their throat behind him. The Doctor spun and the large, ancient (by human standards) tome fell from his startled fingers. It was caught before it hit the ground. The other man straightened, book cradled in his long hands. He looked down at the Doctor over a perfectly straight, aristocratic nose. And it was actually down. The man was taller than himself by a couple of inches and almost as thin. Long black hair framed a handsome face with high, sharp cheekbones and startling bright blue eyes.

 

“Can I help you?” The man’s voice was deep, cold, a bit disdainful and terrifically posh. He was dressed in neck to toe black. The collar of the shirt was high but split in the front revealing several inches of long white throat.

 

The Doctor swallowed hard. “Ah, no, thank you. I was just looking around your - your? - lovey shop.”

 

“It’s mine, yes.” The man flipped the book over in his hands, then looked back up at the Doctor, eyebrow raised. “Read ancient Greek, do you?”

 

“Well yes. I read everything.”

 

The other eyebrow joined the first. “Really?”

 

The Doctor tugged at his collar and ran a hand through his hair. “Yes?” What the hell was wrong with him?

 

The taller man pushed the book back towards him. “Prove it.”

 

The Doctor took the book back and opened it up and read a passage at random. “εἰ δ᾽ αὖθ᾽, ὃ μὴ γένοιτο, συμφορὰ τύχοι, Ἐτεοκλέης ἂν εἷς πολὺς κατὰ πτόλιν ὑμνοῖθ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀστῶν φροιμίοις πολυρρόθοις οἰμώγμασίν θ᾽, ὧν Ζεὺς ἀλεξητήριος ἐπώνυμος γένοιτο Καδμείων πόλει.”

 

The other man’s eyes grew wide as the Doctor read. “Very well, you read Greek. But everything?”

 

The Doctor grinned and snapped the book shut. “What’ve you got?”

 

As it turned out, he had a lot. Over the next thirty-two minutes and twenty-three seconds, the strange man challenged the Doctor with books in twenty-one human languages. It was child’s play, but for some reason the Doctor felt the need to impress this man. He reminded him of…

 

“What’s your name?”

 

“Lukas Sterling. You?”

 

“I’m the Doctor.”

 

“Just ‘the Doctor’?”

 

“Yup, that’s me.”

 

The other man - Lukas - smiled at him. It was sharp and full of very white, very straight teeth. A nice smile, but with an undercurrent of… darkness? Danger? Something terribly familiar which tugged at the Doctor’s mind like an old friend. “A pleasure.” He held his hand out.

 

The Time Lord shook the proffered hand and smiled back. “Likewise.”

 

“Was there actually something I could help you find?”

 

The Doctor was reminded that he hadn’t actually come in here to look for books or to chat with mysterious strangers. “I actually was just… passing through?”

 

The eyebrow was back up. “Try again.”

 

The Doctor retrieved the psychic paper from inside of his jacket, and flipped it open. “I’m investigating…”

 

“That is blank.” Lukas pointed to the paper and a scowl drew his brows down. “Don’t bother trying to lie to me, it will not work.”

 

It was always annoying when the psychic paper didn’t perform properly. “Oh fine.” He tucked the paper away and pulled the sonic screwdriver out instead. “I’ve been following an anomalous spacial signal and it lead me here.” He thumbed the switch and the screwdriver buzzed to life. The light at its tip was the same color of Lukas’s eyes.

 

“You’re not… that’s...” Lukas stared at the screwdriver, winced and brought long fingers up to massage his temples. “I think you should go.”

 

“Please, this could be very dangerous for you. You’ve got to let me take a look around.”

 

Lukas closed his eyes, brow creased. “I… very well.”

 

The Doctor smiled. “Thank you.” He turned in a tight circle and headed off through the stacks again. The signal got stronger to the northwest, and soon he came up against a large metal door. “What’s in here?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

The Doctor turned at Lukas’s strangely flat tone. He tried the door handle. It was locked. “Will you let me in?”

 

“No. There is nothing down there.”

 

The Doctor looked at the taller man. His eyes seemed to glow in the dim light. “Sure about that, are you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well I’m not.” He aimed the sonic screwdriver at the lock only to have his wrist caught in a vice-tight grip. The Doctor looked up and met implacable blue eyes.

 

“You need to leave. Now.” There was a dark violence stirring in that voice and the hand on his wrist was inhumanly strong. It felt so familiar, this confrontation. Comfortable and dangerous. The Doctor wanted to dive into it, but something - common sense, maybe? - held him back.

 

“If that’s what you want…”

 

“It is. Go.”

 

The Doctor nodded and took a step away from the metal door, towards the front of the store. Lukas released his wrist with a small shove. The Doctor retreated to the outer door, Lukas stalking after him, looming dangerously in the dim light. The Time Lord spilled out the front door and stumbled against the door jam. The other man shut the door in his face, visibly bolting it and flipped the placard in the window to “closed”. With a glare, he spun back into the dim interior of the shop.

 

The Doctor shook his head. “Well that wasn’t suspicious at all.”  

 


	2. Chapter 2

Donna spent a good two hours shopping. She found a chunky garnet and gold ring that was an absolute steal, but for the most part, she’d just enjoyed being on Earth doing normal human things for a while. She loved travelling with the Doctor, seeing the universe, being more than herself, but sometimes, it was nice to just be a human woman shopping. But now her feet were getting tired and her stomach rumbled, so she decided to find some tea.

 

There was a tea shop she’d passed near where the TARDIS was parked, so she headed back to that. The name _Big Kahuna Bakery_ was on sign above the door was shaped like a surfboard. She pushed into the humid warmth of the shop. It was empty other than the man behind the counter, but he was easily big enough for two. Donna snapped her mouth shut from where it had fallen around her ankles. He was _gorgeous_ . Chiseled features, blond hair, blue eyes, and easily 6’3” of solid muscle. What was this adonis doing working at a _bakery_?

 

“Hi.” he greeted her from behind the counter with a giant toothy grin. “What can I get you?” His accent was Australian with London layered over it.

 

“Oh, coffee please,” she replied with a smile of her own. “And let me see what you have.”

 

“Everything in the case was baked today.”

 

“Thanks.” Donna looked up at him through her lashes. “Do you recommend anything?”

 

“Depends what you like. In the mood for sweet or savory?”

 

“Sweet.”

 

He leaned over the glass and pointed to the confections below. “The scones are good, fresh out of the oven an hour ago. I learned to make cheesecake in New York, so if that’s your thing, I’d go with that.”

 

“You made the cheesecake?”

 

“I made almost everything in there.”

 

Donna was impressed, and her eyelashes said so. “I hope you’re a good cook.”

 

He laughed. “Cook, no. Baker, yes.” He caught her eye again. “My boyfriend is always making fun of me for it.”

 

 _Of_ **_course_ ** _he’s gay._ Donna sighed. “I’ll try the cheesecake then.” She toned back the flirt, but kept smiling.

 

He grinned. “Great choice.” He moved the register and wrang her up. “I’ll bring it out to you if you want to have a seat.”

 

There was a bar area adjacent to the counter, so she perched on one of the stools. No harm in _looking_ at the adonis, even if she couldn’t touch. He brought the cheesecake and coffee over to her and leaned on the counter.

 

“I haven’t seen you around before. Visiting the district?”

 

Donna nodded and took a bite. It was _amazing_. “This is so good.”

 

He smiled. “Thanks.”

 

She sipped the coffee, which was strong but surprisingly smooth. “Yeah, I was just doing some shopping while my friend takes care of some business.”

 

“Oh yeah?”

 

She shrugged. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem like the type to run a bakery.”

 

“I get that a lot.”

 

“I bet you do.”

 

He laughed easily. “Baking is my passion. I was an actor for a while, back in ‘Straya, but that never really went anywhere.”

 

Donna looked him up and down. “I’m surprised.”

 

He shrugged. “Never really got my ‘big break’, I guess, so I decided to move out here.”

 

“London must seem... cold.” Donna took another bite.

 

“Nah. I miss surfing though.”

 

“So that’s what’s up with the surf motif?”

 

“Yeah, a breath of home.”

 

She smiled. “I get it. I do a lot of traveling. It’s always nice to be reminded of home.”

 

“Yeah.” He looked a little wistful, leaning his chin on a large hand.

 

They chatted for a while while Donna ate her dessert and drank her coffee. The three hour mark was about to roll around and Donna needed to get back to the TARDIS to wait for the Doctor.

 

She regretfully got to her feet. “I have to go meet my friend now.”

 

“It was nice chatting with you.”

 

“You too.”

 

He held out a hand. “If you’re back in town, stop by, yeah?”

 

She took his hand. It dwarfed hers. _Damn, why does he have to have a boyfriend?_ “I will. I’m Donna, by the way.”

 

“Chris. It’s nice to meet you, Donna. See you around?”

 

“I hope so.” She grinned and slipped out the door.

 

o0o

 

To Donna’s surprise, the Doctor was leaning up against the TARDIS doors when she got there.

 

“No luck?” she asked as she approached.

 

“I wouldn’t say that. I think I found where the signal is coming from, but I couldn’t get to it.” He seemed strangely quiet and still.

 

Donna raised her eyebrows. “Couldn’t get to it?”

 

“It’s in the basement of a bookshop. The owner was uncooperative.”

 

“Don’t they realized that it could be dangerous?”

 

The Doctor sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I think he might be dangerous too.”

 

“You think he’s involved?”

 

“Probably, but...” He dropped his head back. It impacted on the door with a thump.

 

“What’s wrong Doctor?”

 

“I… It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

 

“Doctor,” Donna growled. “We talked about this.”

 

“Yes, yes, okay. I’m not fine. He… he reminds me of someone.”

 

“Who?”

 

“An old friend. Enemy. Whatever. He’s dead now. Probably.”

 

Donna narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you try and be this confusing or is it just a gift?”

 

The Doctor sighed, ran his hands through his hair, then down his face, looked at the ground.

 

Donna’s face softened and she lay a hand on his arm. “This is really bothering you, isn’t it?”

 

He nodded, fingers pressed over his lips. “It’s possible… it’s possible that it _is_ him.”

  
  
“Wouldn’t you recognize him?”

 

“Well, yes. But no. He’s a Time Lord, like me.”

 

“So he can change what he looks like?”

 

The Doctor nodded. “But he’s dead. I saw it. Held him as he died. I lit his pyre.”

 

Donna slipped her arm around him. “I’m sorry.”

 

He nodded, still looking at the ground. “He might… he might be another Time Lord, if not the Master. Hiding.”

 

“What makes you think he’s a Time Lord?”

 

“It’s complicated. We have a way of overwriting our memories, and it leaves gaps, points of aversion. Things we can’t look at or think about. Lukas had that. And he had a psychic presence.”

 

“A psychic presence? What the hell does that mean?”

 

“Time Lords are telepathic, Donna. We can communicate mind to mind, though most of us don’t. Didn’t. Usually under… under specific circumstances.” He leaned his head back again. Donna saw tears gathered in his eyes, refusing to fall.

 

Donna leaned in slightly, a gentle prod. “So you think he might be a hidden Time Lord? Is there any way to tell?”

 

“He’d have an object, a watch, most likely, that he ignored all the time, but always had with him.”

 

“Did you see anything like that?”

 

He shook his head. “I wasn’t looking.”

 

Donna leaned on the door next to him. “Could the signal be a TARDIS?”

 

The Doctor looked up, wide-eyed. “I don’t think so… Maybe. Maybe a damaged one. I can’t tell from here.” He clicked the sonic screwdriver on again. “It’s definitely causing a spatial distortion, whatever it is.”

 

“And that’s a thing a damaged TARDIS would do?”

 

“Oh yes.”

 

Donna frowned. “Now that you know where it is, can we materialize closer?”

 

“Too dangerous. Especially if it’s a TARDIS. If I accidentally materialized _inside_ of it, that would cause all kinds of chaos.”

 

“Alright then. So we wait until dark and break into the shop, yeah?”

 

He grinned at her. “Not so boring now, is it?”

 

“Are you joking? I love committing crimes with you, it’s the highlight of my life.” Donna bumped the Doctor’s arm with her shoulder and smiled. “Come on spaceman, let’s get some supper and wait for the sun to go down.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The bookshop was part of a small two-story brick building and took up the middle third of the ground floor. There appeared to be flats on the first floor, so they waited until midnight to break in. Donna half expected there to be some sort of guard dog - alien or Earthly - inside the shop, but there was nothing.

 

“Strange that there’s no security,” she whispered.

 

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Donna,” the Doctor whispered back as they crept down the isles.

 

It was eerily quiet inside. It reminded Donna of the Library, which was not what she wanted to be thinking about right now. She was busy trying to convince herself that the darkness wasn’t going to eat her while the Doctor dealt with the lock on the metal door. It seemed to take forever, but eventually there was clunk and he opened the door.

 

There was a faint blue light coming from the room beyond the bottom of the stairs.

 

“Well that’s not weird at all.”

 

The Doctor shushed her, long finger over his lips, and started down the steps. Reluctantly, Donna followed.

 

The basement was a single open room that looked to be the whole footprint of the building. There were stacks of boxes scattered haphazardly around and the light came from past this maze of cardboard. The Doctor crept forward, sonic screwdriver out in front of him.

 

“Well?” Donna asked in a loud whisper.

 

“Well what?”

 

“Is it a TARDIS?”

 

The Doctor looked over his shoulder, incredulous expression on his face. “Does it look like a TARDIS?”

 

“How would I know?”

 

“Fair point, assuming it was working, it could look like anything.” He sighed and looked back at the screwdriver. “It’s distorting space on a subatomic level. I suppose that light might be some kind of radiation…”

 

“Radiation? Is it safe?”

 

“Just don’t touch it when we get there.”

 

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

 

The light got brighter as they walked.

 

A voice came from behind them. “What are you doing here?”

 

Donna screeched, jumped, and spun around. The Doctor pivoted on his heel, sonic pointed at the source of the voice. The bookshop owner stood behind them, dressed in a black and green paisley dressing gown, eyes glowing blue in the ambient light.

 

“I can explain,” the Doctor began.

 

“I told you to leave.” Lukas glared at the Doctor took a menacing step forward. “I do not care to be ignored.”

 

The Doctor backed up a few paces, a placating hand out towards the other man. “You see, there’s an object down here that’s creating a spatial distortion, it’s very dangerous.”

 

Donna stood slightly behind the Doctor, backing up with him. “What’s with Professor Snape, here?”

 

“He owns the bookshop.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Doctor, I told you to leave. I have no desire to harm you, but you are…” Lukas stopped and brought a hand up to his temple. A look of pure agony passed over his features and then resolved in rage. “Go, now!”

 

“Donna.”

 

“Yes Doctor?”

 

“You know what to do.”

 

“Run?”

 

“Run!”

 

The time travelers spun and raced towards the light.

 

They were closer than expected to the source of the light. The Doctor skidded to a halt and Donna stumbled into his back. She peeked around him to see what had arrested his progress. There was a glass case up against the wall. Inside was a walking stick with a glowing blue jewel in the handle.

 

The Doctor reached out towards the case and whispered. “It… it’s singing, Donna. I can hear it in my mind.”

 

“Doctor, enraged Slytherin on our tail?”

 

“It’s so beautiful…”

 

Donna shook the Doctor’s shoulder, but he was frozen, gazing into the light. “Come on!” She succeeded in pulling him off balance enough that he stumbled to the side, just as Lukas skidded into the small open area around the case.

 

The taller man’s attention was also immediately captivated by the case, but instead of staring at it blissfully the way the Doctor was, his features creased in pain and he screamed. This shook the Doctor out of his revery, and he snapped his attention to the now collapsing form in front of them.

 

Lukas kept screaming. His knees hit the floor, arms wrapped around his head, then fell forward, crumpled on the ground. Only when his head hit the concrete did the screaming stop.

 

Donna stared at the Doctor. “What the hell was that?”

 

“I have no idea.” He glanced back at the case. “This is definitely what he was trying to keep us away from.”

 

“Obviously.”

 

The Doctor dragged his eyes away from the case and back to the man on the floor. He was breathing, but it was labored. The Time Lord crouched down and felt for a pulse. Lukas’s skin was surprisingly cool; about the same his own rather than human warm. He felt a thready single pulse in the other man’s wrist.

 

“Is he alright?”

 

“Don’t know.” The Doctor straightened up and turned back to the case; the blue of the gem reflected in his eyes.

 

“Why isn’t it affecting me?” Donna asked. “I can’t hear it singing or anything.”

 

“You’re not psychic,” the Doctor replied. He took out the sonic screwdriver again and checked the readings. “It would only affect you if someone used it on you.”

 

Donna’s eyes went wide. “Used it?”

 

“Oh yes. This is a device of some kind.” He pointed the screwdriver at the lock on the case.

 

Donna came up to his shoulder. “It’s dangerous, yeah?”

 

“Undoubtedly.”

 

“Then why are you trying to get it out of it’s nice safe glass house?”

 

The lock clicked and the Doctor tucked the screwdriver back in his pocket. “Because it’s dangerous.”

 

“You like danger a bit more than is healthy, Doctor.”

 

“You’re not the first person to tell me that. Or the twentieth.” He reached out towards the case.

 

A new voice interrupted. “What the hell is going on here?”

 

Donna jumped. “I swear to God I will scream at the next person who sneaks up on me.” She swung around to face whoever had spoken. “Chris?”

 

“Donna?” The adonis from the bakery stood in the entry wearing a pair of track pants and nothing else. “Oh god, Luke!” He went to his knees by the man on the floor.

 

 _“He’s_ your boyfriend?” Donna asked.

 

Absently Chris nodded and lay his hand on the unconscious man’s face. “I heard him scream and I came down. What happened?”

 

Donna knelt beside him. “He just started screaming after looking at that.” She nodded towards where the Doctor stood staring at the cane.

 

Chris brushed a strand of raven hair off of his boyfriend’s face. “We never come down here. He keeps it locked. Actually, he sometimes seems to forget we even have a basement.”

 

The Doctor spun. “He forgets it’s here?”

 

The blond looked up and nodded. “Who are you?”

 

“This is the Doctor. He’s the friend I was meeting,” Donna explained.

 

“Yes, we broke into your friend’s shop. Sorry.”

 

“It’s your funeral, mate.” Chris shook his head and looked back down. “He’s got a temper like you wouldn’t believe.”

 

“I might, actually,” the Doctor muttered.

 

“Why isn’t he waking up?”

 

“Psychic shock, probably.”

 

Chris turned to Donna. “Does that make sense to you?”

 

She shrugged. “Sort of.”

 

“I’m going to get him back up to the flat.” He scooped the unconscious man into his arms and stood with only a little wobble. He glared at the Doctor. “And you are going to fix him.”

 

“Am I? Alright. I suppose.”

 

Donna glared at him, but the Doctor just smiled, small and crooked, and snagged the walking stick in one hand as they left the room.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Two sets of stairs later, they were in a nicely appointed flat above the bookshop. The door was open; a sign of its occupants having left in a hurry. Chris lay Lukas down on the sofa which took up half the sitting room. Not because the room was small, but because the couch had clearly been designed for someone of Chris’s size to lay on. In other words, it was huge. 

 

The large blond tenderly pulled a blanket over his unconscious boyfriend and brushed a strand of raven hair back. He then straightened and glared squarely at the Doctor, massive arms crossed over his chest. “Now fix him.”

 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at the adonis. “And if I can’t?” 

 

“I’ll wait for him to wake up and he’ll deal with you instead of me.” 

 

“You say that like he’s scarrier that an 16 stone weight lifter,” Donna put in.

 

“He is.” 

 

The Doctor set the walking stick in the corner by the door and came over to the sofa. He ran the sonic screwdriver over the pale form on the couch. “Is he human?”

 

“What?”

 

The Doctor turned to Chris. “It’s a pretty clear question, is he human?” 

 

“He looks human,” Donna observed.

 

“So do I,” the Doctor reminded her. 

 

“Fair point.”

 

“How would I know then?” Chris asked.

 

The Doctor sighed. “He’s cold, is that normal?” 

 

Chris lay the back of his hand on Lukas’s cheek. “He’s a little colder than usual right now, but yeah. He’s usually freezing. He says I’m a furnace.” 

 

“You think he’s an alien, Doctor?” 

 

“Or infected with something alien.” The Doctor sat next to the couch. “He’s definitely psychic, and there’s something else…” He stared down at the unconscious man and fell silent. 

 

“Should I be jealous at the way your friend is looking at my boyfriend?”

 

Donna shrugged. “I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that, but he’s got an ex-girlfriend or two out there.”

 

“So have I,” Chris replied to her surprise. “That doesn’t mean anything.” 

 

Donna tilted her head in acknowledgement. The Doctor had placed his finger’s over Lukas’s temples and his eyes were closed. “How did you two meet?”

 

Chris sat in one of the big cushy chairs that matched the sofa. Donna sat in the other. “He came into my bakery about a year and a half ago. It took me ages to figure out he was flirting with me and another age to get him to go out with me.”

 

“Really?” 

 

Chris laughed. “Yeah. I got the impression he was pretty sure I was making fun of him. He seems completely unaware that he’s drop dead gorgeous.” 

 

Donna gave the dark haired man another look. He was absolutely not her type - far too skinny - but she had to admit he had a nice face, and a lot of people would think he was beautiful. “Self esteem issues happen to the best of us,” she replied with a blinding lack of self awareness. “So how long have you been together?”

 

“A little over a year.” 

 

Donna was gobsmacked. “It took six months to convince him to go out with you?”

 

Chris nodded sadly. “Like I said, he thought I was playing a joke on him or something.” 

 

“I don’t think I’d care…” Donna muttered quietly enough for Chris not to hear her. She turned her attention over to the Doctor. “So you think your boyfriend is an alien?”

 

Adonis shrugged. “He’s an odd one. Heavier and stronger than he looks. No idea where his money comes from; he owns the building, but the bookstore doesn’t make a profit at all.”

 

Donna frowned. “That doesn’t mean anything. He could be independently wealthy.”   
  
Chris nodded. “He acts like he’s from a wealthy family at least. Sure talks like he went to Eton and Cambridge, though he’s never mentioned school.”

 

“Like a toff.” Donna winced when she realized what she’d said. “Sorry.”

 

“No offense taken. It occured to me at one point he might be nobility masquerading as a commoner, but that seems so…”

 

“Unlikely?” 

 

“Fairytale.”

 

Donna snorted. “‘Lord so-and-so in secret gay love nest’, the papers would go mental.” 

 

“It’s the 21st century!” 

 

“Yeah? Gay marriage legal yet?”

 

Chris sighed. “No. Voting on it here soon, from what I’ve heard. That’s another reason I moved here. Home was much worse.” 

 

Donna ignored Chris’s comment about Australian politics. “It’s about time,” Not that she had a horse in that particular race, other than a few friends who had been together for far too long to not be properly acknowledged. It just seemed wrong to her to deny anyone such a fundamental right. After all, if she dreamed about getting married and living happily ever after, it stood to reason that everyone should be able to do the same.  

 

“Yeah.” Chris looked over at his unconscious and possibly alien boyfriend. “You think your friend can help him?”

 

“If anyone can, it’s the Doctor.” 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

The Doctor stood before a castle of epic proportions. It wasn’t of a design he recognized, but it was certainly a fortress of monumental proportions. The walls were made of huge sheets of golden stone going up in vertical, fluted columns. They fit together so closely that a sheet of paper couldn’t fit between them.

 

The stones were all covered in networks of cracks; they looked like they were about to disintegrate at any moment.

 

He called out to the walls. “Hello?”

 

There was no reply.

 

With a sigh, the Doctor set about circling the walls to see if he could find an entrance. “Why are mindscapes always so complicated,” he muttered to himself. “Why not a nice open door?  A doorbell? A knocker would do.” He half expected such a thing to appear, but no portals magically appeared for him. However, after a few minutes of walking, there was a gap in the walls. One of the golden columns had shattered completely and azure light bled from inside. “Well that’s promising.” He clambered over the boulder sized chunks of stone and went inside.

 

The interior looked like a library; an ancient looking stone-floored space full of antique looking wooden bookcases. Not too shocking for a bookshop owner; though the Doctor reflected that it was probably a good analogy for the memory as well. It had a feel of immense age, almost like the library at the Academy back on Gallifrey.

 

He went to pick up one of the leatherbound volumes and was startled to see chains across the shelves as though the books were prisoners.

 

The Doctor ran a finger along a spine, skipping over the chain. “A locked memory.”

 

He’d been in mindscapes before. His own resembled an amalgamation of the various places he’d lived over the centuries, changing a little every regeneration. It looked more like the interior of his TARDIS now than the cottage he’d spent the summers of his youth, but that ancient bedroom was still in there somewhere. The resemblance to a TARDIS was common for the Time Lords’ mindscapes he’d visited. Then again, they were all renegades, and their TARDISes were their homes. Was this infinite, ancient library a home for this man?

 

Maybe he was thinking about this too much. The Doctor removed the chain from one of the bookshelves, took a book down and opened it.

  


o0o

 

The man from the bookshop sat on a wooden crate with something clutched in his hands. The object was blurred out from the memory, so the Doctor couldn’t see it, but it seemed to be about two and a half feet long. Lukas looked _terrible,_ sweating and ill, with dark circles under his eyes, his long black hair awry in spikes. His garments were heavy; black and green with accents of gold, and completely alien.

 

Another man - older in appearance and careworn, dressed in black and deep purple - came over to him and crouched beside the crate. “You alright, boss?” The other man had an American accent and strangely glazed looking blue eyes.

 

Lukas nodded. It was a sharp jerk of his head that said, no, I’m not alright at all.

 

“You need anything?”

 

“A new path.” Lukas’s voice was rough.

 

“Whatcha mean?”

 

“I doubt my current plan. There is a flaw, but I cannot see it.”

 

The older man sighed. “When was the last time you slept? Or ate?”

 

Lukas shot to his feet. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the plan.”

 

The other man stood as well. “Please boss, you gotta eat.”

 

Lukas glared down his nose at him, then his expression softened slightly. “Very well.”

 

The other man grinned, and handed Lukas the sandwich he’d had in a pocket and the coffee he held in his hands. “You’ll have a clearer head once you’ve eaten.”

 

“Perhaps so.” Lukas sat back down on the crate. “Bring me the pad.”

 

“Right away.”

 

The older man turned obediently and left Lukas alone. The Doctor watched as the bookshop owner - who looked a lot more like an alien warlord than a bookshop owner at the moment - eyed the sandwich with suspicion before taking a bite. A moment later, the other man returned with what looked like a large iPad. Lukas took it without acknowledging the man, and turned his attention entirely to the device as he ate absently.

 

The Doctor looked over Lukas’s shoulder at the images that came up. Biog data on men and women. The faces were unfamiliar to the Doctor, but the snippets of information he picked up as Lukas rapidly swiped through the screens told him that they were dangerous. Finally an image of a round, blue device came up. The color was similar to the stone on Lukas’s walking stick, a bright azure blue. Was it... embedded in someone’s _chest?_

 

“This. This is the problem,” Lukas muttered under his breath. “Damn.” He dropped the pad which fell to the floor with rattle, and cradled his head in his hands.

 

“Boss?”

 

“Bring Selvig.”

 

“Yes boss.” The other man rushed away and returned a moment later with a harried looking older man in a lab coat with those same, glazed blue eyes.

 

“You wanted me?”

 

Lukas looked up. “Can you create a portal with the resources we have now?”

 

The scientist thought for a moment. “Maybe. Not a stable one, but like what we had managed back at PEGASUS? Yeah.”

 

Lukas looked relieved. “Do it. Make it portable.”

 

“Right away.” Selvig hurried off.

 

“What the play, boss?”

 

“I think we may on plan F now, my Hawk.” Lukas stood and swayed. The other man placed a steadying hand on Lukas’s arm, but the taller man flinched away. “Or perhaps G.”

 

“Extraction.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You taking us with you?”

 

Lukas shook his head. “You are safer away from me.”

 

The other man’s face creased into a frown. “I don’t like it.”

 

Lukas laughed and it was so bitter. “You will hate me once I’m gone and consider yourself well rid of me.”

 

The Hawk shook his head. “No way, boss.”

 

“We shall see.” Lukas smiled sadly and turned away. “Evacuate the base except for those who are assisting Selvig. Pay them the agreed upon fees plus 20% to keep their mouths closed.”

 

“25% would be better.”

 

Lukas nodded. “Do it.”

 

“Yes boss.” He turned and walked away.

  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody call it?


	6. Chapter 6

 

The Doctor was back in the library, book in his hands, the memory faded. He frowned down at the book as though the blank pages would tell him something. The memory had layers of blockage. Despite having seen it, he didn’t know who the people had been, where they were, when this had happened. All of the normal associations with memory were gone. It had been plucked from the mind and presented like a play.

 

He'd seen memories before. This was wrong. Altered.

 

Of course he had never been in the mindscape of someone who’d had their personality overwritten. Or rather, not _while_ their personality had been rewritten.

 

Time Lords were complicated beings.

 

He picked up another book.  

 

o0o

 

Falling. Endless, eternal falling.

 

He had been falling hours. Days. Years. Centuries. The cold scorched his skin, turning it blue. There was no air, but yet he lived. His reserves were almost gone; burned away by the fall. He’d long ago closed his eyes to the maddening darkness with its insane colors just beyond the black. But there was a hint of warmth, so he opened them. It was likely a trick of his fractured sanity, but he had to _see._

 

It looked like the night sky, but beyond - for those that had the senses to see it - was eternity.

 

The Doctor recognized the Vortex. This man was falling unprotected through _the Vortex_. That shouldn’t be possible. Not even a Time Lord could survive in the Vortex without a force field. Not for more than a few seconds. Not that _he_ hadn’t done it of course…

 

But how can someone survive for _days_ here? Possibly longer? There was no real sense of time in the Vortex, even for him. He felt the passage of time more tangibly than his own heartbeats, but the Vortex meddled with even a Time Lord’s senses. It was a maelstrom of time and space and energy. It would be impossible to know.

 

It was more than enough to drive someone mad.

 

It was more than enough to kill.

 

So how had this man survived?

 

The fall played on and on, as though the memory was eternal. The Doctor could hear the edges of thoughts as they passed through the memory.

 

_unwanted, unloved, monster, pawn, never good enough, never could be, better off without me, unwanted, monster, unloved, monster, pawn, never good enough, never could be, better off without me, unwanted, unloved, monster, pawn, never good enough, monster, never could be, better off without me, monster, monster, unloved, monster, monster, monster, unwanted, unloved, monster, never good enough, never could be, better off without me, unwanted, unloved, monster…_

 

The thoughts spiraled, endlessly looped, getting heavier and darker until they were shattering the mind around them. Breaking the walls.

 

That’s where the shattered walls of the mindscape had come from. Circling despair from within, timeless madness from without.

 

He had no idea if this fall had happened before or after the previous memory. It was amazing that he’d been even sort of coherent _now_ with this level of mental damage.

 

He was starting to understand though. Words spoken to him so long ago that it had been literally another life came back to him:

 

_“Can't you imagine a situation so heartbreaking, so terrible that you wouldn't want to escape who you are? Have your life fall apart so completely, have your dreams shattered so thoroughly, that all hope you may have once had is gone? Can't you imagine that?”_

 

Oh yes.

 

The woman who said that had been human, but she shouldn’t have been.

 

She was dead now; she had burned with the rest of them.

 

So now he knew what had happened. But how had it happened? This man was not a Time Lord. The Doctor had no idea _what_ he was, but it seemed very unlikely that he was from Gallifrey. It seemed equally unlikely that a Time Lord had been involved, all things considered. So, what could overwrite a mind other than a chameleon arch?

 

Perhaps something with a strong psychic presence?

 

“Ah! I’m getting old. Thick and old. Of course.”

 

The Doctor pulled himself out of the memory. Then, after a few minutes work, out of the mindscape completely.

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

The low murmur of voices invaded his consciousness slowly. Donna was talking, but that wasn’t relevant. The Doctor sat back, fingertips brushing long black hair. Brilliant blue eyes met his and there was a strange spark of recognition.

 

“What did you do?” Lukas’s voice was barely above a whisper.

 

“I put a couple of things back.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You broke your mind. I wrapped some sellotape around it.” The Doctor sat up more. “If you want it properly mended, then we’ll have to do more work, but that’s up to you.”  

 

“Luke, you alright?”

 

The raven haired man looked over at the tall blond who now knelt at his side. He smiled, wide and beautiful. “Hello my love.” He reached out and they clasped hands.

 

“Hey.”

 

The Doctor stood up and away from the other men, and pulled at his cuffs. He looked at Donna, who had an “awww” look on her face as she looked at the others. He walked over and perched on the arm of her chair and spoke quietly in her ear. “It’s a miracle that he’s alive, Donna.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

 

“What?”

 

“What he’s gone through would have killed almost anyone. The fact that he’s alive and... sentient, let alone lucid, is amazing. And actually, he’s pretty brilliant. Not me, of course, but still.”

 

“Doctor…”

 

“I can hear you, you know.”

 

The Doctor’s eyebrows went up. “I meant it. It’s incredible you’re sane.”

 

Chris was helping Luke to sit up. The dark man leaned heavily on the blond. They made a striking couple, opposite examples of masculine beauty. Slim and dark, all elegant contrast, and muscular and golden, ruggedly handsome. And the way they looked at each other…

 

“Do you want to know what I saw in your mind?”

 

Lukas shook his head. “Paraphrase, if you don’t mind. You seem to have an idea what’s wrong?”

 

“I… I think you overwrote your own memories. With that.” He pointed to the walking stick by the door.

 

Lukas scowled. First at the Doctor, then at the cane with its glowing blue gem. “Why do you think that?”

 

“Because I saw some of your memories, and they weren’t _you_. I’ve seen this before. I’ve _done it_ before, though through different means. You wanted to forget, felt you had nothing left in your old life, so you tried to become a normal human. And you’ve fallen prey to humanity’s greatest gift and curse, and I don’t know if that means you want to go back or stay. I can’t make that choice for you, so I wrapped your mind in bandages.”

 

Donna blinked. Chris frowned. Lukas…

 

Lukas looked heartbroken. “Humanity's greatest curse?”

 

“And gift,” the Doctor replied.

 

“What?”

 

The Doctor looked at his companion. “Donna?”

 

She smiled a bit sadly. “Love.”

 

Lukas looked at Chris. “I fell in love.”

 

The blond smiled, big and happy. “Yeah you did.”

 

“When…” Lukas took a deep breath, his eyes fixed on his boyfriend, “when I first met you, I was certain we’d met before. That I knew you.” He looked at the Doctor. “Could that be from… from my previous life?”

 

The Doctor nodded. “Easily. Likely even. I… sometimes we recognize people, even if we don’t know why.”

 

Lukas’s eyes were wide with horror. “Did you know me? Before?”

 

Chris shook his head. “No way. I would remember you.”

 

“I… I don’t think I would ever want to forget you.”

 

“Unless he was gone.” The words slipped out of the Doctor’s mouth before he could stop them. “Sorry.” Donna looked up at him, a curious little frown on her face. “What?” he asked.

 

“That was weirdly… human of you.”

 

“I… sorry.”

 

“That’s not something you should apologize for.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

Donna sighed.

 

“I couldn’t bear that.” Lukas reached for Chris’s hand and entwined their fingers. “I couldn’t let go.” His head jerked and he closed his eyes. “Let go,” he echoed, voice gone strained. “No.” Aristocratic features folded in pain.

 

The Doctor frowned, leaned forward. “You’re remembering.”  


“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

 

“I’m afraid you may not have a choice. Your mind is incredibly strong.”

 

Lukas sprang to his feet, hands clutched in the hair by his temples. “I do not wish for this to happen. I do not wish to go _back_. I cannot.” Lukas spun around to face the Doctor, terror written on handsome face. “Please, you must help me. I cannot go back. I do not wish…” He cried out, a hoarse pained noise, eyes squeezed shut. When they opened again, they were pale; gray and green with only the tiniest hint of blue; no longer bright azure and shining. He dropped to his knees. “No!”

 

Chris dropped down next to him and wrapped his arm around Lukas’s shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay.”

 

“No, you do not understand,” Lukas let out a sob, “what have I _done?”_

 

Donna and Chris exchanged alarmed looks. The Doctor frowned.

 

“It’s okay babe, it’s over, you don’t have to… to go back.”

 

“He may not have a choice at this point,” the Doctor muttered.

 

Lukas clung to Chris’s arm, crying. “Oh my love, I am so very sorry.”

 

“This isn’t how you described what happened to you,” Donna said quietly.

 

The Doctor shrugged. “Different mechanism. Also not a Time Lord.”

 

Lukas was looking at Chris with a look of transfixed horror. “Oh no.” He shook his head violently. “I… I’m sorry.”

 

“Hey, you don’t need to apologize.” The large blond rubbed small circles on the other man’s back. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

 

“Everything I have done is wrong.”

 

“Lukas, look at me,” the Doctor commanded, and the dark haired man complied, almost unwillingly. “You have not been in your right mind for some time, I doubt you could be held responsible for anything you’ve done in a long while.”

 

“Doctor, you do not understand.”

 

“I might.”

 

Lukas ignored the Doctor and turned back to his boyfriend. “Have I ever... hurt you?”

 

“What? No!” Chris shook his head. “Even when I drive you mental and you lose your temper, you’ve never tried to hurt me.” The blond pulled Lukas towards him. “You’d never hurt me.”

 

Donna shifted in her seat and frowned. The Doctor’s eyes grew wide. He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut.

 

Lukas spoke quietly. “I get… angry, jealous. I’m sorry. I need you.”

 

“I’m here. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

 

“Doctor, should we… go?” Donna muttered.

 

“He needs to decide what to do before we can.”

 

“What do you mean?” she asked.

 

“I need to choose to take my life back. Or not,” Lukas said quietly. “I need to decide if I want to go back to who I was.”

 

The Doctor nodded. “I expect you don’t have everything back yet?”

 

Lukas shook his head. “No. Just images. Fighting. Killing.” He looked at Chris. “You. But not really you.”

 

“Me?”

 

The raven haired man nodded. Tears trickled down his cheeks. “I loved you. And hated you. Tried… tried to kill you.”

 

“That’s why… Oh babe, no. You’ve never…” Chris swept him up in giant, bone cracking hug. “There’s only ever been love.”

 

Lukas gasped out a sob. “Why would I hate you so much? How is it even possible to love and hate _so_ much? I remember… my heart breaking. Fear. Fear that you would... hate me. Kill me.”

 

“Never.”

 

“It’s not you he’s talking about,” the Doctor said. “It’s whoever you remind him of. Unless…” The Doctor zipped to his feet and across the room in a burst of movement. Before the other man could react, he placed a hand over Chris’s forehead and closed his eyes. “Nope. Normal human.” Just as suddenly, the Doctor let go and and went back to the chair, snagging the walking stick as he strode across the room. “I figured as much, but it’s always best to check.”

 

“Doctor, are you being especially weird, or is it just me?”

 

“I’ve done this before Donna, it’s hitting a little close to home.”

 

“What did you do?” Lukas asked. “What did you choose?”

 

“Me? I didn't. The choice was made for me.The ‘proper me’ was needed, so I came back. But I’ve seen this happen to others. Everyone always comes back.”  


“Were any of them in love?” Donna asked.

 

“I… yes. Sort of.” The Doctor tugged at his collar. “I was.”

 

“You?”

 

“The ‘other me’ was. It should have occurred to me, but it didn’t.” The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. “My… one of my friends who also did this, her other self was haunted by memories, nightmares caused by her old life bleeding through. Love and death will always bleed through.”

 

At the word “nightmares” both Chris and Lukas twitched.

 

“You have terrible nightmares, don’t you?” the Doctor asked.

 

Lukas nodded. “Your friend, what did she dream of?”

 

The Doctor’s jaw tightened. “She… she dreamed of murdering her lover. Over and over again.” Donna gasped, Chris grimaced, and Lukas’s eyes went wide. “She hadn’t, but he was gone, and she had done terrible things because of it. It wasn’t real, just… just how her mind coped. I think that was part of the reason she chose to come back. To know for certain what had really happened to her.”

 

“She hadn’t killed him?” Lukas asked.

 

“No. But he…” the Doctor took a deep breath, “he was as good as dead. Or so she thought.”

 

“Oh.” Donna’s voice was quiet. “And she came back? Became herself again?”  


“She did. It was hard. Painful. Both physically and mentally. She had done terrible things and wanted to forget, but ultimately, it was better for her to face what had happened. She was never the same afterwards though.” The Doctor looked up at Lukas. “I can’t make that choice for you. No one can.”

 

The blue/green/gray eyes closed. “My nightmares are… confusing. Full of monsters. Death. Fighting. Killing. Nothing like this place.” Lukas opens his eyes again and they are full of pain. “I feel as though I’ve done terrible things.”

 

“Haven’t we all,” the Doctor muttered. He sprang to his feet again. “Look, all I can give you are the facts. Your mind is badly damaged, and I can help you fix it, but you’ll remember. We can leave things as they are but your memories will probably start leaking through more and more. I might, _might_ be able to suppress your original memories, but it may fade over time. You’re strong enough to take it - whatever you decide - but it will not be pleasant.”

 

Lukas looked from the Doctor, to Donna, to Chris. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

 

“I’ll keep you safe, babe.” Chris rubbed small circles on the dark man’s back. “You won’t hurt me.”

 

Lukas leaned his head on Chris’s shoulder. “I wish I had your confidence.” He sighed and looked up at the Doctor. “Very well. Do what you need to do.”

 

The Doctor nodded and crossed the room; he held the walking stick loosely in one hand. “Lay back down. I’m sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

 

Lukas pulled himself away from Chris with obvious reluctance and lay back down on the giant sofa. “I can deal with pain.”

 

The Doctor sat on the edge of the sofa beside the slender man. He lay one hand on Lukas’s forehead, the other gripped the walking stick. “I really am sorry.” He closed his eyes and Lukas screamed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eheheheh
> 
>  
> 
> If anyone is curious, the Doctor is not talking about something from Doctor Who canon, but an original work that I may post at some point. I've been writing Doctor Who fic for a very very long time, and most of it isn't posted here. The Doctor's Time Lady friend has a lot of stories about her.


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor stood in the middle of a maelstrom. Lukas’s memories whipped around him, through him. Occasionally he’d catch a hint of one of them. What he saw looked alien, both to Earth and even his own experiences. There was fighting everywhere, but there seemed to be no malice to it. One man kept showing up in the memories, over and over again. Chris. 

 

Except it wasn’t the Australian. His voice was the same, but the accent was different, more like Lukas’s own posh accent, with that strange cadence that the dark haired man’s took on when he was stressed. 

 

Years - centuries - flew by. They clearly grew up together. Fought side by side in battle after battle. Always together. Best friends or… brothers. 

 

_ Oh. _

 

The Doctor watched helplessly as the memories solidified. After centuries of status quo, something changed. Something shattered. 

 

“I’m not your brother, I never was.” Lukas’s voice was thick with emotion. Rage. Pain. Spinning on the edge of a precipice of madness. His grounding was gone. Everything was a lie. 

 

“... this is madness.” 

 

“Is it madness? Is it? Is it?!” Tears were forming in Lukas’s eyes as his inner world collapsed. Something was coming, something worse. Some great failure. 

 

Everything froze. The memory of the two armored men halted. The Doctor turned and saw Lukas staring back and forth between them. He wore a high necked black suit, human by design, rather than the armor that this memory wore; more like the dark outfits he’d worn when they met on Earth. He looked smaller with no helmet, no shoulder armor, no cloak, but mostly he looked broken rather than breaking. 

 

“What was it?” the Doctor asked. “What is he about to say?” 

 

Lukas looked at him. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, instead of clinging to his eyes like the memory. “Someone else took my place. Someone else finally convinced him to change. I had been trying for centuries to get him to just  _ listen _ to me, and this  _ woman _ does it in a few days.” The dark figure walked up to the blond in his shining silver armor. “I knew he would hate me because of what I truly am, but to see him change so easily for someone else…” His long fingers brushed the still form’s face. “He never really loved me.” 

 

The Doctor stared at the tableaux. “Look at his face. He’s confused and hurting. He doesn’t know what you’re going through. He doesn’t know why you’ve told him you’re not his brother, he doesn’t understand.”

 

“I know. He couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to live as his shadow for so long, and then to have even that ripped away.” 

 

The Doctor doesn’t want to ask, but he has to. “Did you kill him?”

 

“No. I failed, even at that.” 

 

“You didn’t want to succeed.” 

 

“No, I didn’t.” 

 

The scene changed. Now the two are hanging off the edge of a bridge over the Vortex. The Doctor and Lukas stood in nothingness and watched. Too far away to hear the words shouted between the brothers and the third, older man who stood over them, holding onto the blond’s cloak, keeping the pair from plummeting. But whatever they say, it isn’t enough. 

 

Lukas let go.

 

The Doctor looked on in horror as the figure fell. 

 

“You let go.” 

 

“I let go.” 

 

“How did you survive?” 

 

“I number of factors. Eventually I was… I hesitate to say ‘rescued’, but I did eventually land.” Lukas sighed. “I never intended to live through it. But I did.” 

 

“Do you know how long you were falling?”

 

Lukas shrugged. “The Void has no time. Months, I think.” 

 

“That’s horrifying. I spent a few  _ minutes  _ in the Vortex and it felt like I was being ripped apart.” 

 

“Yes, that’s exactly what it was like. But I was already mad. I had nothing.” 

 

“Have you seen your brother since?”

 

“He’s not my brother.” Lukas’s voice was so much calmer than in the memory. 

 

“No?”

 

“I was stolen as a child. We’re not even the same species.” 

 

“Ah.” 

 

“I was born a monster. One of the race we dreamed of exterminating as children. The enemy of our… his people.” 

 

The Doctor shuddered. There was no perfect analogy, but it sounded as though he himself had woken one day to discover that he was a Dalek. 

 

“I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.” 

 

“I’d been lied to my whole life, but Father… his father… always favored Thor. I thought it was just because he was a warrior and I was not, but once I learned the truth, it all made sense.” 

 

“Thor,” the Doctor muttered. “As in the god of thunder?”

 

“Yes. I understand our lives were turned into some kind of mythology - with varying degrees of accuracy - on Earth.” 

 

The Doctor stared at the dark figure beside him. “You’re Loki.” 

 

Lukas - Loki - dropped his head to chest, hands locked in front of him. “I am.”    
  


The Doctor grinned. “Brilliant! I always wanted to meet you. I thought I’d probably have to go to the 10th century to do it though.”

 

“You… what?” Loki’s eyes went wide and his mouth hung slightly open. 

 

“I never bought that whole ‘evil’ thing. Monks never get anything right. You should see what they write about me.” 

 

Loki blinked heavily. “You are a very strange being.” 

 

“Oh you’ve no idea.” The Doctor flashed a toothy smile which the other tentatively returned. “Do you want to go home? Back to your home planet?”

 

“No. I would be in grave danger if I did so and I’m... happy here.” 

 

“Fine. Good. How did you get here, by the way?”

 

“Ah. You did not find the only artifact I brought with me. It might be easiest if I showed you.” 

 

“You’re probably right. How are you feeling?”

 

“Surprisingly alright,” Loki replied. “More stable than I have since before I learned the truth of my parentage.” 

 

“Being human for a while was good for you. I’m not surprised.” 

 

“You mentioned that you had done this before?”

 

The Doctor nodded. “Not for long enough to have much of a psychological effect, but my friend who did this, she healed a great deal of trauma while she was human.” 

 

“Had she killed anyone?” 

 

The Doctor started. “No, but what she did do was almost worse.” He looked away. 

 

“I nearly committed genocide, Doctor.” 

 

“But you didn’t.” 

 

“Thor stopped me.” 

 

“It was the… the race that you’re from?” 

 

“It was.” 

 

The Doctor dropped his head. “I don’t recommend being the last of your species.” 

 

“Oh.” Loki swallowed hard. “Yes. I see.” His pale eyes fly up to starscape above them. “We should return. Chris will be worried.” 

 

“Are you going to tell him?” 

 

Loki tugged on his cuffs. “That he looks like my brother? Yes, I shall. He deserves the truth. I have no idea how he’ll take it though.” 

 

“He loves you. It might take a little while, but you’ll be fine.” 

 

“Thank you.” 

 

The Doctor nodded. “Let’s go.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm weird. I know.


	9. Chapter 9

 

Donna made tea in Lukas and Chris’s kitchen while Chris watched the silent figures of his boyfriend and the Doctor, motionless on the couch. She pressed a mug into his huge hands and he smiled at her. “Thanks.”

 

“Of course.” She sat in the free chair and sipped her own tea. “Hey, I think they’re moving.”

 

The Doctor was indeed stirring. He sat up and flexed his hands, then stepped away from the couch. Lukas’s eyes opened a second later. They were still gray-green, but pain lines were etched around them and he looked older.

 

Chris was by the couch in an instant. “Hey.”

 

Lukas smiled at him, but it was sad rather than joyful. “Hello.”

 

“What’s wrong babe?”

 

Lukas looked down. “I have much to tell you, and I do not know how you will react to what I have to say.”

 

“Do you still love me?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Then I don’t care.” The blond lunged forward to kiss him, but Lukas held up a hand, stopping him.

 

“Do not say that before you know.” Lukas sighed and sat up. “I am sorry, my love.”

 

Chris took hold of the other man’s hands. “Hey, it’s okay.”

 

Lukas sighed and looked down at their joined hands. “My name is not Lukas; it’s Loki. I am… not from this planet. My home realm is actually in a different universe than this one.”

 

The Doctor nodded to himself. “That explains a few things.”

 

Loki glanced at the Doctor, then back to his hands. “Indeed. By the laws of your world, I am a criminal. Perhaps I would not be found accountable for my actions by reason of insanity, but the fact remains.”

 

“What about by the laws of your culture?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Ah. By our laws, I was well within my rights as king.”

 

Donna’s mouth dropped open. “King?”

 

“Indeed. I struck a definitive blow in an existing war - which my brother started - while I was rightfully appointed king.”

 

Donna and Chris wore nearly identical gobsmacked expressions. “Wow. I knew you were high class, but…”

 

Loki chuckled. “I was raised a prince and was lead to believe that I could attain the throne, though that was not true, nor did I truly want it.” He sighed. “There is more, I’m afraid.”

 

Chris waved a hand.

 

Loki tugged at the collar of his dressing gown. “I was correct, I had met someone like you before.” Chris nodded. “The man you remind me of…”

 

“Yes?” Chris prompted after a few long moments.

 

Loki swallowed audibly. “Is my brother.”

 

“I…” Chris blinked. “Were you and he…?” He brought his hands together, fingers interlaced.

 

Loki shook his head. “No, of course not. But he was the center of my universe.”

 

“Good.”

 

Loki looked up, his eyes wide. “Good?”

 

“I’m glad I didn’t just remind you of your last boyfriend, and that’s why we got together. And I assume that I’m not actually that much like him?”

 

“Well, you look very similar,” Loki admitted, “but you are a much kinder person. Your personalities are not at all alike.”

 

“I don’t really want to be like someone who started a war.”

 

“You’re not.”

 

Chris grinned. “That’s all I need to hear.” He reached out and cupped the other man’s cheek.

 

The Doctor cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you were going to show me what brought you here? Then we can get out of your hair.”

 

“Oh yes.” Loki stood up, automatically straightening his clothes. “Come with me.” He led the way out of the flat.

 

As they walked, Donna noted that Loki moved differently than Lukas had. He was more assured and more graceful, but there was also a greater wariness to him. He swept down the stairs, dressing gown blown out behind him like an illusion of robes or a cloak. He lead down through the shop into the basement, back to where they had found the walking stick. He leaned down to the cabinet under the glass case, did _something_ to it and the door popped open. He reached inside and pulled out a glowing blue cube the same color as the gem in the walking stick.

 

The Doctor’s eyes went wide. “How did you get that?”

 

Loki grinned. “I stole it.”

 

“Don’t touch it, either of you,” the Doctor said as both Donna and Chris were reaching out to the azure light. “It could hurt you quite badly.”

 

Donna snatched her hand back, as did Chris. Loki smiled, his long fingers wrapped around the base of the cube with no ill-effect.

 

“May I?” The Doctor reached out for it and Loki handed it over. The Doctor held the cube up in his fingers the way that Loki had, palm distant.

 

“Oi, why can you two touch it and not us?” Donna asked.

 

The two replied simultaneously: “God.” “Time Lord.”

 

“Oh lord, there are two of them now.” Donna rolled her eyes and turned to Chris. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

 

The Australian grinned. “Thanks, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine.”

 

“What is that thing?” Donna asked.

 

“It’s a tesseract,” the Doctor replied.

 

“It’s actually _the_ Tesseract. In my universe, there’s only one.” Loki smirked. “Well, _was_ only one.”

 

“And you stole it?” The Doctor grinned. “Brilliant.”

 

Donna frowned. “I don’t get it.”

 

“It reaches beyond dimensions. It can be used to move great distances by folding space. Creating wormholes. That’s what’s been causing the spatial disruptions.” the Doctor explained. “My people created a fair number of them, though they’re all gone now.”

 

“This one predates my universe,” Loki said. “There are five other creations which have a similar properties and power level, though they all do different things. The item you’ve been calling a walking stick contains one of them.”

 

“Ah, of course,” the Doctor held the stick up. He looked at it as though he was slightly surprised that he even had it. “Some sort of psychic affinity.”

 

“Indeed. By removing them from my own universe, the balance of power has changed dramatically.” Loki held out his hand. “May I?”

 

The Doctor reluctantly handed the walking stick over. It writhed in Loki’s hands, changing from the innocuous looking cane to something that was clearly alien and a weapon. A sharp blade curved over where the stone was housed, and the handle shortened. Loki smiled down at it. “I have missed this.” He flipped his wrist, spinning the scepter, wielding it like a mace.  

 

“Careful,” the Doctor cautioned.

 

“Oh I am well aware of its… addictive qualities, Doctor, and its utility as a weapon.” Loki ran his hand down the shaft of the handle. “I never got to use it to its full extent, but it is most effective at what it does.”

 

“What does it do?” Donna asked, not sure she wanted the answer.

 

“It controls minds,” the Doctor replied quietly.

 

“And acts as an energy source, but yes.”

 

“Mind control?” Donna asked, horrified.

 

Loki nodded. He gazed at the gem. His eyes gleamed in the azure light, for a moment going back to their ‘original’ color of brilliant blue. “Yes. It essentially enslaves the target to the cause and will of the wielder.”

 

“That’s horrid.”

 

“It is extremely effective.”

 

“How many?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Doctor?” Donna said quietly.

 

Loki shifted his weight from foot to foot, eyes still on the gem.

 

“Tell me.”

 

Loki spoke quietly. “Three.”

 

The Doctor frowned.

 

“If I had… well there would have been many more, but only three.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Chris asked.

 

“How many people I controlled,” Loki whispered. “I was tasked with heading an invasion. I… I failed. I was fated, doomed to fail. I might have kept trying. Died trying, most likely, but instead I ran. I released everyone I had controlled, took the scepter and the Tesseract and fled from my universe.”

 

“Why?” the Doctor asked after a long moment of silence.

 

Loki looked up at the Doctor. His long fingers still moved up and down the handle of the scepter. “I told you I had been ‘rescued’? Those I fell in with needed a pawn. I wanted revenge. Or so I thought. They were very… persuasive.”

 

The Doctor frowned.

 

“You were coerced,” Chris said quietly.

 

Loki shrugged.

 

“Worse?”

 

“I was told that if I failed, I would long for something as ‘sweet as pain’. I had little choice.”

 

“You could have stayed,” the Doctor pointed out quietly.

 

“And I might have, had I not realized that my plans had no hope of working.” Loki sighed. “I might have stayed and died a glorious death. Or been slowly torn apart or crushed by my ‘allies’ when I _failed_ to die in battle.” He looked down at his hands. “I am rather bad at dying.”

 

“I know the feeling,” the Doctor muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, what do you want to do here?”

 

“What do you mean?” Loki looked back up at the Doctor.

 

“You have your memories back and you have a life here that you care about. What do you want to do now? You said you don’t want to go home.”

 

“This is my home.” Loki blindly reached out for Chris’s hand and intertwined their fingers.

 

“You could travel, you know.” The Doctor handed the Tesseract back over. “That would let you go anywhere you want in the galaxy. The universe, really.”

 

“I worry that using it again might attract attention from my home universe. I am in hiding, Doctor. I went through several parallel universes before coming here in hopes of evading capture.”

 

“Fair enough. And you’re not planning on taking the planet over or anything?”

 

Loki shook his head. “I never really wanted a throne; only to prove myself worthy. I feel no need to rule, now.”

 

“Do you want me to take one of your artifacts so that you’re harder to trace?”

 

“So I won’t be tempted, you mean.”

 

The Doctor grinned. “That too.”

 

Loki looked at the scepter in his hands. “If they do track me to this universe, I will need to defend myself. Perhaps you could assist me with hiding the energy signatures better?”

 

The Doctor nodded. “Of course.”

 

Loki looked over at Chris, then at their joined hands. “Perhaps later?”

 

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “We can stick around another day, right Donna?”

 

“I might go visit grandad.”

 

“Might be best not to; we’re in your personal future.”

 

“Oh yeah.” Donna pouted. “Well, I could certainly sleep.”

 

“I’ll see what I can find to help you disguise those signals and be back tomorrow.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

The travelers left the shop, leaving the unlikely pair to properly acquaint themselves.

 

“So, alien warlord _not_ invading Earth? Who knew?”

 

“Stranger things have happened, Donna.”

 

“I suppose.”

 

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

 

“Are you upset? That he wasn’t a Time Lord.?”

 

“I… No, not really. I’m getting used to the idea that I’m alone.”

 

“Oi, not alone.”

 

The Doctor gave his companion a sad smile. “How would you feel if you were the last human in the universe, Donna? If everyone you’d ever known was dead? Your family? Your friends? Every boyfriend you’ve ever had?” He sighed heavily. “Then imagine that you were responsible for their deaths. Not directly, maybe, but that you might have done something different, and saved them? That’s not a burden that can be born easily. Not alone.”

 

“Oh Doctor. I’m sorry.”

 

“Not your fault. Not really mine, but… I can relate to our alien friend back there.”

 

Donna wrapped her arm around the Doctor’s waist and leaned against him. “I’m sure you’ll find someone someday. If you escaped, maybe others did too?”

 

“The Master did.”

 

“And if there were two of you, there could be more, yeah?”

 

“I live in hope, Donna. I live in hope.”

 


End file.
